Summer in the City
by piratesmiley
Summary: Beca finds herself in a slight state of depression the summer after freshman year. Oh, what could possibly cheer her up?


A/N: Special thanks to stopthenrewind for encouraging me to get off my butt and finish something!

* * *

It wasn't like her to act this way.

(It wasn't like her to join an a capella group or make nice with her dad or be friends with a bunch of crazy girls or fall in _something_ with a weirdo.)

But there she was, still moping about.

Here's what she should have been doing: making mixes now that her school time and Bella-rehearsal time was reduced to zero; roaming the city, listless in the heat, with her friends (yes, she has actual real friends, although she's not as psycho-attached to them as she is to the group of randoms she's collected at Barden); getting some DJ-ing gigs (she likes playing her music for drunk strangers in the dark, it's like playing to a sweaty, stupid sponge, they just soak it up and use it the way it's meant to be used); and pretending that summer will never end and she'll never have to take a fucking Gen Ed class again.

Here's what she's actually doing: jack shit.

Since she left Barden for summer break, Beca had been: 1.) lying in her bed, 2.) watching reruns of _Full House_ and _Sabrina the Teenaged Witch_, and 3.) eating her weight in Pringles.

She tried not to think about why she was being so dumpy and weird. Because if she questioned it, his stupid face would pop into her brain.

Jesse.

So she did her stupid grand gesture (which wasn't stupid, really; it was quite awesome, if she does say so herself) and they kissed, and then they talked a bit, and then they kissed some more, and then they laid out on the grass together and went to the station together and studied in her room together and did stupid movication in his room together and _did everything together_.

For a month.

And leaving Barden kind of sucked because of that. So, yes, apparently she was going through "mancake withdrawals" (as Amy had put it the last time they Skyped, when she saw Beca in all her sweatpants-ed, greasy-haired glory), but that didn't mean she had to be all weird and gross, right?

That wasn't the real issue, though.

They hadn't talked about it. The whole, _what is this relationship, like gee golly, are we going steady now or should I expect you to fuck other people, _thing. She knows they should have. She knows he wanted to. He's the kind of guy who needs to know where he stands. And she should have been decent enough to give him that. But every time she felt the conversation coming on she'd get all jumpy and twist her way out of it, usually using the power of her vajay to avoid it. (And obviously he didn't _mind_ this activity, but she can't help but wonder if he would enjoy it just an ounce more if he knew for certain if they were BF/GF.)

So she had been feeling listless and weird about it all month. And every time they talked on the phone or texted or Skyped just intensified this feeling to an acute point of _get the fuck over here and stay with me forever_.

And to make matters worse, Jesse had been acting kind of weird the last few times they'd talked. Like last night, she asked what he was doing tomorrow, and he said _don't you worry your pretty little head about that_, to which she made a semi-threatening remark about where he can put his sass; but his reply, which should have been sparkling with wit and dotted with film references, was a simple, _apologies, my dear_, and, well, she didn't quite know what to make of that.

Anyway, she could ponder it endlessly over her Chinese takeout, which the knocking at the door signified was there and ready to be consumed, along with her feelings.

Only it wasn't her Chinese at the door.

Beca had only hallucinated once before; when she was eleven she was running a fever so high from the flu that she thought her mom was Cruella DeVille and the nurses and doctors were the 101 Dalmatians begging for scraps at the foot of her hospital bed. She ended up throwing some of her cafeteria-grade lime jello at an orderly in an attempt to ward off a particularly persistent puppy. That was the only time.

But she was pretty sure she was hallucinating now, because there was literally no possible explanation for what she was seeing.

That didn't stop her from talking to it, though. "If I had known you were coming I would have put on a bra."

He smirked. She just blinked at him owlishly.

"Or taken a shower."

The smirk grew. "Well, first of all, bras are never necessary in my company. And secondly, you know, I think I need a shower too. We'll shower together," he said, as if that was the most logical thing in the world. He broke through his joke by finishing with a smile.

She smiled back softly. "Hi," she said.

"Hi. Wanna watch Titanic?"

He certainly didn't waste any time.

"Really?" she groaned. He unzipped his backpack to show her that it was chock full of DVDs. He waggled his eyebrows. She moved aside to let him in. He walked straight to the couch and plopped down in his own very ungraceful, very _Jesse_ way.

She closed the door and followed. "So, not that I don't like being gently harassed by you, but what are you doing here?"

"What do you mean?" he said, playing stupid as he rifled through his bag.

"New York is kind of a trek from your part of the country."

He gave her a look. "My part of the country?"

"South Carolina."

"There is nothing wrong with South Carolina. Stephen Colbert is from South Carolina."

"So I've heard." She'd gotten this lecture before. Usually she just rolled her eyes and pretended that she didn't find it cute that he thought Stephen Colbert legitimized his home state as _cool_.

"And besides," he continued, "it's your part of the country now, too. You go to school in _Georgia_."

She made a face and tsked at him. "Congratulations on completely avoiding my question."

Finally he finished rooting through his bag to unearth a juice pouch, which he tossed to her. "Can't a guy visit his weirdo without getting interrogated nowadays?"

It was a loaded question. Of course he could. Her weeks of pathetic moping clearly meant that she wanted him around. But it still wasn't a real answer. (She found herself not really caring, though, and small warmth spread through her. There were worse things to be than _his_ weirdo. _God_, she was losing it.)

She didn't respond, though, still thinking, and his expression grew slightly nervous. "I guess it was kind of risky for me to come here without saying anything first."

She stayed silent, this time on purpose, fighting a smirk.

"I probably should have thought this through more."

She changed her tactics, trying to cover up her smile with a sip of juice.

"I can turn my back if you need to sneak your other boyfriend out?"

And there was that word. _Boyfriend. _ She swallowed the juice hard, but without really thinking about it a non-sarcastic smile bloomed on her face. She attempted to tamp it down.

_Boyfriend_. It sounded alright, rolling off his tongue.

But she still hadn't said anything, so he continued. "I could just go crawl in a hole and die now?"

She watched doubt and worry spread over his face and instantly felt bad. She decided to let him off the hook (in her own special way).

She sat down next to him, close enough to settle his uneasiness. "Well, my other boyfriend wasn't really doing it for me, so I sent him home for the night. So I guess your little impromptu trip paid off."

"How so?"

"I mean, you'll probably get lucky tonight."

She was staring ahead at John Stamos' paused face on the television, but she could still see Jesse's blinding smile out of the corner of her eye.

"I missed you," he said, after a moment's pause. "That's why I came."

She let herself smile.

"And I could tell that you missed the crap out of me, so…"

She turned to him with the sole purpose of rolling her eyes, but somehow she ended up leaning in and kissing him instead.

"Are you watching Full House?" Jesse asked after she pulled away. "Oh, no. No, no, no. This will not do."

This time, she did roll her eyes. Hard. She sighed, resigned. "Movie me, Swanson."

He grinned. "I thought you'd never ask."


End file.
